Firehouse Theatre's 22nd Season to Feature THE BOY IN THE BATHROOM, THE FOURTH WALL & More

Under the new artistic leadership of Joel Bassin, Firehouse is pleased to announce their 2015-2016 Season. To begin, we're programming our season around a theme so that the journey we take together has a narrative flow and can be a platform for a sustained conversation between and among our artists and audiences.

This season our theme is RADICAL CHANGE. Change is everywhere. It's a constant in our lives and we cope with it in many ways. Richmond is on the cusp of change. The world is in a state of perpetual change. Drama hinges on reversal and recognition -- on something changing -- and theatre aspires to transform us with new perspectives and insight. For these reasons and many others that we'll explore this year, 2015-2016 is indeed a SEASON OF RADICAL CHANGE.

We are very excited to partner with an amazing array of some of the most creative and imaginative artists that we have ever met, and we look forward to sharing their work with you. Firehouse hopes that you'll join us on what promises to be an incredibly exciting journey that will lead to....

FIREHOUSE PLAYS 2015-2016

THE BOY IN THE BATHROOM
A New Musical with Book & Lyrics by Michael Lluberes
Music & Additional Lyrics by Joe Maloney / Directed by Adam B. Ferguson
Performances begin July 15, 2015 / Regional Premiere

Sometimes we lock ourselves in prisons of our own making to resist the risk of life's uncertainty and the pull of change.

David hasn't come out of the bathroom for a year. He's OCD and is trying to write his thesis in an environment that he can control. His devoted and protective mother Pam tries her best to make him comfortable, until she breaks her hip and Julie enters their lives.

The Boy in The Bathroom won the New York Musical Theater Festival Award for Most Promising New Musical, was the Richard Rodgers Award finalist for Best Book, and won the American Harmony Prize.

THE FOURTH WALL
by A.R. Gurney / Directed by Kerrigan Sullivan
Performances begin December 10, 2015 / Regional Premiere

If you sensed there was something better out there, would you have the courage to change everything by stepping through to the other side?

Julia has upset her husband Roger's comfortable suburban life by rearranging the furniture in the living room of their comfortable suburban home. Roger enlists longtime friend Peggy and an expert from the local community college to help him persuade Julia to be sensible and put the furniture back where it belongs.

A.R. Gurney is the recipient of many awards including a Drama Desk Special Award, PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist, and multiple Outer Critics Circle Awards.

MAPLE AND VINE
by Jordan Harrison / Directed by Mark Lerman
Performances begin March 31, 2016 / Regional Premiere

We yearn for "the good old days" when things never changed, but is it really as good as we imagine?

Yuppie power couple Katha and Ryu have achieved most of their dreams but Katha can't get a good night's sleep. When they're invited to join the SDO (Society for Dynamic Obsolescence) they decide to give it all up to pursue more traditional values.

Jordan Harrison's awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, Theater Masters' Innovative Playwright Award, Kesselring Prize, Heideman Award, Jerome and McKnight Fellowships from The Playwrights' Center, and NEA/TCG Playwright-in-Residence Grant.

FIREHOUSE FRINGE 2015-2016

FRINGE = unconventional, unorthodox, alternative,
avant-garde, experimental, innovative,
not part of the mainstream...

Stay tuned for details, but for now take a look at some of the artists and groups who will be participating in our inaugural FIREHOUSE FRINGE series that will include 50+ eclectic performances, madcap mayhem, and outrageous entertainments: Blacklist Burlesque and stars of the RVA burlesque community with EVENING AND BRUNCH BURLESQUE, Ray Bullock (the godfather of Richmond comedy) with Firehouse TICKLE ME TUESDAYS, Joe Carragher, Classical Revolution RVA, Slash Coleman, Christian D'Andrea and Firehouse's ON THE PORCH music series, Lucy Dacus, Dreamers Theatre, Fright Night, Paolo Garbanzo Productions, Watt Hyer and the International Brotherhood of Magicians Ring 180, Heritage Ensemble Theatre Company, Starlet Knight & Anthony Dowd, Lily Lamberta and All the Saints Theater Company, Joanna Lee and Firehouse HAPPY HOUR POETRY, Yvahn Maretee and Cabaret Expertise, Madame Onça (the hardest working woman in show business), On the Air Radio Players, Charley Raintree, Janet Rodgers and Firehouse's PLAY READING ROUNDTABLE, Annie Stokes, Keri Wormald and The Women's Mercury with Firehouse's LUNCHTIME THEATRE, Doc Volz, Kyla Zabala and Highland Springs High School with Firehouse's PROJECT IGNITE, and many, many more!

To expand access and make Firehouse a vibrant artistic home we are launching FIREHOUSE STUDIO as an incubator for new work, where artists and makers of all kinds can investigate, explore, test, and exercise their creative imaginations. Work-in-progress showings will be a regular feature of the series, and will be open forums for artists and audiences to have a conversation about the work, as both an essential part of its development and as a way to connect audiences to the performance-making process.

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